SavingGrace

iola Davis couldn’t have been more gracious in her acceptance of the NAACP Image “Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture” Award for her work in “The Woman King”, calling it her magnum opus (translation: her greatest achievement).

Yet, despite it being an Oscar worthy performance– the kind that we have come to expect from Davis, because of the caliber of actress she is, and because of what she demands of herself–she and the film were snubbed by the Motion Picture Academy, receiving not one Oscar nomination.

Davis voiced her frustration speaking to a round table of filmmakers for The Hollywood Reporter in January. “Everything is a fight, and I’ll tell you the ultimate fight that goes up my a**. You have a film, The Woman King, based on the Agojie tribe, and it’s got to be test screened and it’s got to mean something to white males, white females, and Black males. It doesn’t matter if it’s reaching 98% of Black females.”

“So how do you reach the white male audience?” she continued. “And how do you make people feel like, if I can’t reach the white male audience, it doesn’t mean that the movie can’t have some commercial value?”

As it turns out, The Woman King has grossed $100 million worldwide and is one of Netflix’s top trending films. It not only earned four Critics Choice Award nominations, but also garnered best actress nods for Davis at the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild and BAFTA Film Awards.

Fact is since she first stepped on stage in an offBroadway production of the William Shakespeare comedy, As You Like It to the 2006 role in “Doubt” that netted her first Oscar nomination (Best supporting actress); to her 2006 role in “The Help” bringing a second Oscar nomi nation in the same category; her six year stint on ABC’s hit drama, How to Get Away With Murder”, which made her the first Af rican-American to win the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series; to “Fences” opposite Denzel Washington in 2017, which finally earned her a best supporting actress Oscar; and most recently her portrayal of Nanisca in “The Woman King”–Viola Davis has not disappointed.

Just last month, with the Grammy she was awarded for narrating the au diobook of her bestselling memoir, Finding Me, Davis became only the 18th person in history to achieve EGOT status, having won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award.

Quite a feat for the St. Matthews, South Carolina native who was born in a one room shack on a former plantation.

“Earlier in my career, I didn't have anything. I didn't have a profile, I did n't have any money and I didn't have any choices. I’m in a profession that has a 95 percent unemployment rate with less than one percent of the profession makes $50,000 a year of more.”

Today, the 57-year old actress has seven films in the works–including an untitled Harriet Tubman project–and with her husband, Julius Tennon, owns and operates JuVee Productions, which has several projects in the works including the telling of the Bruce’s Beach story.

Praise aside, Davis–who received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame five years ago– treasures the journey.

“Living life for something bigger than yourself is a hero’s journey,” says Davis. That answer to your call, to adventure and journeying forth with mentors and allies, and facing your greatest fears, where you either die or your life as you know it will never be the same. And then you seize the sword, the insight, the treasure.”

Raised in what she has characterized as “abject poverty and dysfunction”, Davis’ parents struggled to make ends meet, often coming up short, leaving a young Viola to worry more about when her next meal would come than dream of becoming a star. On occasion, times were so hard Davis would have to eat from dumpsters or go without meals altogether while the family’s housing was often in condemned and or ratinfested dwellings.

She and her sister discovered a much-needed outlet through acting and would write and perform plays around the house at 8 or 9. Starting in youth programs she eventually studied acting at Rhode Island College before matriculating to the prestigious art school Julliard.

Davis received her Screen Actors Guild card in 1996 for doing one day of work, playing a nurse who passes a vial of blood to Timothy Hutton in the film The Substance of Fire and was nominated for her First Tony Award for her performance in August Wilson’s Seven Guitars just three years after graduating Julliard.

Finding success on Broadway, she received her first Tony Award in 2001 for King Headley II. Davis used her Broadway success as a launching point from which she embraced her unique ability to channel depth to her characters and began to take Hollywood by storm, her breakthrough role coming opposite Meryl Streep in “Doubt”. With just one scene in that movie, she earned both Golden Globe and Oscar nod for best supporting actress.

Just like that, she had arrived. Despite her suc- cesses, Davis has always been keenly aware of how blessed she has been for the steady work that has come since.

"The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity," she said during her acceptance speech in 2015. "You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there."